Decades-mature Distributed Computing, largely based on wired communication paths, has warily and ominously witnessed a brash and brawny new sibling arrive in the household named Cloud Computing, largely borne of wireless communication paths, at least at the end-device. The core thrust of this disclosure is that timing and location of digitally-enabled nodes needs to become a central operational aspect of such networks, as specified functional components and network layers.
Previous disclosures have laid much of the groundwork for such components and layers. In particular, in our prior disclosures, we describe how to adapt networks to provide inherent positioning and timing calibration to devices within the network. These disclosures are provided in Assignee's U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,876,266, 7,983,185, Published US Patent Applications 20090233621 and 20090213828, and unpublished U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/187,723 filed Jul. 21, 2011, entitled MULTI-PATH-COMPENSATION METHODS FOR LOCATION-DETERMINATION OF MOBILE DEVICES (published as 2012-0309415), Ser. No. 13/179,807 filed Jul. 11, 2011, entitled LOCATION AWARE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS (published as 2012-0309414), and 61/613,915, filed Mar. 21, 2012, entitled Positioning Systems for Wireless Networks (now filed in non-provisional form as Ser. No. 13/833,679), which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety (referred to as “space-time calibration patents”).
As described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,876,266, the approaches described in the space time calibration patents are interoperable with current techniques for positioning and timing, and also can reside independent of these and provide location and timing for devices in a network. Examples of current techniques for positioning within the urban environment include the following: Cellular: GPS, A-GPS, Time of Arrival, Radio Fingerprinting, Cell Global Identity, and Enhanced Cell ID. Wi-Fi: Radio Fingerprinting, Wi-Fi TOA, and Wireless Access Point War-driving. GPS: DGPS, WAAS, A-GPS, and Laser Augmentation.
This disclosure will further describe the functional concept of a Location Based Router (LBR). Any and every node in a network can serve the LBR role. If it can communicate, it can take on the role of the LBR. Mesh Networks are particularly suited for operating LBR components and software layers—and the same principle applies with Mesh Networks: location and timing matter, so build them into the core of what Mesh Networks are.
A familiar prior art to LBR is what is commonly referred to as ‘Routers’ today, which duly receive digital packets from one IP address and do their best to route such packets to—or at least closer to—some destination IP address. The LBR of this disclosure uses and builds upon the simplified operations of this type of network router, while attempting to add the above elements of location and timing to the overall functional picture.
One aspect of the invention is a location based router system comprising a router in communication with an ad hoc network of devices, including at least one mobile device. The router directs packets from the network to associated agents. The router and its agents execute on one or more processing units within a device or distributed among different devices over a network. The router receives queries from requesting clients, such as the mobile device, and provides location to the requesting client. Additionally, depending on preferences of the client, it also routes market packets for location based services back to the mobile device dependent on its location.
The particular configuration of agents can vary. In one embodiment, the agents include a grouping agent, a packet processing agent, and a solution agent. The grouping agent manages an ad hoc network of nodes, including at least one mobile device. The packet processing agent receives packets originating from the ad hoc network of nodes, and prepares information from the packets for determining location of the mobile device node. The solution agent processes information prepared by the packet processing agent to determine location of the mobile device node.
Additional agents provide pre-processing of packets to manage the flow of packet data from ad hoc network to other agents that process the packets to determine location of devices. For example, in one embodiment, a pair filtering agent determines from packets coming from the network whether communication between a pair of nodes in the network is sufficient to use signal transmissions between the nodes to determine location solutions. This agent may be used by the packet processing agent or solution agent to pre-filter packets routed from the network to the solution agent for determining location.
Additional components of the router system may include an agent for managing active agents to which the router sends packets for determining location, as well as agents for providing location based services to a mobile device within the ad hoc network.
The router communicates directly or indirectly with the mobile device to receive its queries for location and services, to route packets for determining its location, and to route market packets to the mobile device to provide services dependent on its location.
The ad hoc network of nodes changes over time as the mobile device makes new connections with wireless network nodes. The grouping agent updates the wireless network nodes from which data is used to determine the location of the mobile device. In one particular Wi Fi device network embodiment, the mobile device is a Wi-Fi transmitting device, such as a cell phone or tablet, and the wireless network nodes comprise Wi-Fi modules that transmit and receive signals with each other in pairs, capture transmit and receipt data for these signals, and send the transmit and receive data in packets to the router for determining the location of the mobile device.
Another aspect of the invention is a method of providing location based service to a mobile device in a wireless network. The method comprises:
from the wireless device, receiving a query for location in the wireless network, the query including an opt-in level for participating in offers for location based services;
receiving location computed from packets transmitted between the mobile device and nodes in the wireless network;
providing a data structure comprising location, opt in level, and mobile device user information to a market for services, where the market for services determines an associated service based on the location, opt in level and mobile device user information and adds metadata for the associated service to the data structure to produce a response structure, enabling the user device to obtain the associated service.
There are several variants of this method, in terms of system architecture and alternative features, and methods, which are described in more detail below. Inventive features are not intended to be limited to various combinations of elements presently claimed in this patent application.
Further features will become apparent with reference to the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.